Whether, wherever, whatever you shave - you need Occam's razor

Can Hodges' model be honed by students from day #1 - 'Intro lecture 101',
 across all curricula to function as a form of Occam's razor -
a reflective and critical thinking tool
to last a lifetime's learning (and unlearning)?
 

INDIVIDUAL

|

     INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

Occam's razor: "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". "It urges us to choose the simplest explanations or models for any phenomenon we observe." William of Ockham, born around 1285.	"It has been a tool for scientific progress, not to mention a guiding principle for our thoughts, right up to the present day."
Hodges' model: a tool for individual learners and communities of practice.	"He was, I believe, the first person to so clearly separate science from its religious tethers, a move crucial to science's subsequent secular development."

McFadden, J. (2021) Razor sharp, New Scientist, 18-25 December. 252:3365/66. pp.70-71.

Identity, entity and continuity - c/o Evans (2009)

"Many things are defined by their identity, and not by any attribute. In our typical conception, a person ... has an identity that stretches from birth to death and even beyond. That person's physical attributes transform and ultimately disappear. The name may change. Financial relationships come and go. There is not a single attribute of a person that cannot change; yet the identity persists. Am I the same person I was at age five? This kind of metaphysical question is important in the search for effective domain models. Slightly rephrased: Does the user of the application care if I am the same person I was at age five? 

A conceptual identity has to be matched between multiple implementations of the objects, its stored forms, and real-world actors such as a phone caller. Attributes may not match." p.90.

"Object modeling tends to lead us to focus on the attributes of an object, but the fundamental concept of an ENTITY is an abstract continuity threading through a life cycle and even passing through multiple forms.

"Some objects are not defined primarily by their attributes. They represent a thread of identity that runs through time and often across distinct representations. Sometimes such an object must be matched with another object even though the attributes differ. An object must be distinguished from other objects even though they might have the same attributes. Mistaken identity can lead to data corruption.

An object defined primarily by its identity is called an ENTITY. ...

Domain-Driven Design

Of course, most "ENTITIES" in a software system are not people or entities in the usual sense of the word. An ENTITY is anything that has continuity through a life cycle and distinctions independent of attributes that are important to the application's user. It could be a person, a city, a car, a lottery ticket, or a bank transaction." p.91.

Eric Evans, (2009). Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software, Model-Driven Design. Addison-Wesley.
[Emboldened text as per book.]

Drupalcon Munich 2012 [i]

Drupalcon Munich 2012 Group Photo

Well another European Drupalcon has been and gone. It was an awesome event in Munich; the venue, sessions, organisation and the community. It all proved a brilliant experience even without the night time thunder and lightening.

I'm not sure if this particular sponge is saturated to its limited capacity, but compared with previous years I took fewer notes and haven't posted as yet. The (glaring) take home lesson for me remains the same. Write less: do!

The notes I do have started after the first keynote by Dries Buytaert on the State and future of Drupal. Personally, I prefer a presentation rather than the interview format. A change in format must be a relief for Dries and for circuit regulars, but despite a visual interlude the social negotiation seemed for me to get in the way of the show and tell. Given that though Drupal is a year aware from the next release, so this reduces the 'news'. Portland 2013 will no doubt be literally more telling.

I did scribble some ..., on Entities and Properties and attending How to Dominate the Theme Layer. Useful to consider that the visual hierarchy may not match the outline of your site in terms of information architecture. The idea of styling now and injecting classes later has much appeal. I am enthralled by the prospect of font selection, colour and other site design aspects.

There were several sessions on Multilingual sites in D7 & D8. The pros and cons of node level translation vs. field level translation were explained, the latter being considered the best model for most use cases and set to be the likely default in D8. Given the cons of translation and the need to keep it simple I would set about limiting translation to Brian Hodges' original course notes and a new introduction to h2cm. Another key question referred to the type of experience you are building - is it totally symmetrical or asymmetric?

More to follow.  
Photo source:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/drupalassoc/7893709730/